Intermediate Filaments in Higher Plant Cells and Their Reconstitution in vitro

摘要

Delicate networks of 10-nm filaments were found to exist widely in suspension cells of cultured carrot and root tip cells of pea by selective extraction combined with whole mount and diethylene glycol distearate plastic embedment-free section for electron microscopy. These filament components are polypeptides of 52, 58, 62—64 and 50kD using Western blot analysis. A relatively uniform 10-nm filaments, as well as bundle of such filaments could be reconstituted in vitro. The reconstituted filaments were indistinguishable from native plant intermediate filaments in morphology and protein components. Thus the intermediate filaments are actually present in cytoplasm of higher plants. We also found no obvious specificity in tissues and species by comparison of the proteins among various types of plant cells.